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ESPN’s Outside the Lines recently reported information from a previously unseen notebook that proves Pete Rose bet on baseball as a player. Pete Rose of course, was famously kicked out of baseball by then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti for betting on the game while as a manager. However, he maintained throughout his investigation and to this day that he never bet on the game when he was a player, which was one of the arguments many of his proponents used to make his Hall of Fame case. This new revelation changes his story and certainly makes it very unlikely that current Commissioner Rob Manfred will overturn Giamatti’s ruling or re-open the matter. Meaning Pete Rose will likely remain barred from baseball for the rest of his life.

There are official and unofficial rules in baseball. You shouldn’t cheat or take performance enhancing drugs, you shouldn’t try and get hit by a pitch to break up a perfect game, you shouldn’t flip your bat or admire your home run ball, and you shouldn’t touch an umpire or take too long to adjust your batting gloves in the batter’s box. But more important than any of these: you can’t bet on baseball. The Chicago White Sox were famously dubbed the Black Sox in 1919 for taking money from gamblers to help throw the World Series. And due in part to that scandal and the effect it had on the game, fixing and betting on games was considered the ultimate evil for someone involved in the game to do. Fans looked the other way at stars taking PEDs and amphetamines, at minor league players earning less than minimum wage and even at outright racism and homophobia from their team’s players and personnel, but what they would not tolerate was betting on the game.

Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) has seen an explosion of popularity over the last few years, and recognizing this, Major League Baseball capitalized on the surge in enthusiasm and the emerging market. There are many DFS sites around, with the most popular being DraftKings, FanDuel, and FantasyAces, but there are many more and no reason to list them all here. Fantasy sports is a multi-billion dollar industry, and DFS capitalizes on that market by giving players the opportunity to play every day with a different team participating in new contests for new prizes. While there is skill involved in picking your lineup and optimizing to the opposing pitcher, where your player is batting in the order, ballpark factors and more, it is still a form of legalized gambling. You pick your roster and pay a certain amount to enter that roster into daily contests. The contests then pay out a prize to either the top half of entrants or to a set number of winners (depending on the site and contest).

DFS has been a huge boon for the fantasy sports industry, as fantasy writers and experts can double up by participating and making money in the contests since they usually know more than the average participant while also writing articles and giving advice on DFS tactics through their personal websites, companies and other mediums. It also continues to grow in popularity, and with money on the line, people are likely to seek the advice of experts to make sure they are making the right moves.

DFS has also been a hit for MLB, as with any fantasy sport, fans are more likely to tune in to track their players and see how well their team is doing. Baseball especially is a tribal sport with most fans only following the progress of their own team or maybe sometimes that of their rivals as well. But with fantasy sports, players track stars across the sport on all 30 teams and look for the best value if he is wearing your team’s colors or not.

But even while the baseball industry makes money hand-over-fist from fantasy, it punishes its players for participating or even mentioning it. On April 3, 2015 (one day after signing the deal with DraftKings), Major League Baseball fined Miami Marlins pitcher Jarred Cosart for a link to gambling. In a statement from Commissioner Manfred, “the investigation [into Cosart] did not reveal any evidence to suggest that Cosart, who fully cooperated with the investigation, bet on baseball.” Instead, they fined him for violating a rule that “prohibits players from placing bets with illegal bookmakers or agents for illegal book makers.” In other words, even though Cosart did not bet on baseball he did make a bet. And it was with an “illegal bookmaker.” Now what constitutes an illegal book maker? The rule comes from Major League Rule 21(d)(3) which just says the above and that it is “strictly enforced and applies to gambling with illegal bookmakers of any sport or event” (not just baseball). So that doesn’t clear anything up about what is illegal. All we can think is that MLB wants to discourage gambling, except when it is sanctioned or through their own legal bookmakers – DraftKings.

The purpose of MLB’s hardline about players betting on baseball is that the Black Sox Scandal was a real black mark on the sport, and thanks to its occurrence during the World Series, many fans were lost and never returned. Leaving aside that at the time the players did not have any form of free agency and were similar to indentured servants, tied to their teams and owners who were the only people they could negotiate their salary with as a reason that the players on the White Sox took the money from gamblers when it was offered – the issue still seemed to be that by agreeing to fix and lose the game, the legitimacy of the sport was called into question. The White Sox players did not take money to try and win the Series (something that they obviously would have tried to do without any extra incentive), they took money to lose it.

This all brings us back to Pete Rose. Major League Baseball will likely review the new report from Outside the Lines and conclude that the initial ban from baseball by Bart Giamatti was the right decision and that Pete Rose will never be allowed back in baseball in any capacity. But to do so is to assume that when Rose was betting on baseball, he was ever doing so to lose a game. The thought that one of the greatest players to ever play the game, the man who holds the records for the most hits in major league history, was trying to lose is just silly. If you have ever watched Pete Rose play – live or in clips from the past – you knew that he played all out, all the time. Heck, his nickname was Charlie Hustle. To think that he was ever betting on the Reds or Phillies to lose while he was playing for them does not align with everything we’ve ever seen him do. And he makes the same claims for himself as a manager when he admitted to betting on the game, but never against his own team.

Budweiser markets many of their products using MLB logos thanks to their partnership

I will never know what exact bets Pete Rose placed, and likely he doesn’t remember all of them either. Gambling is an addiction that can be as harmful as anything, and it can tear apart families and lives just like more common addictions to drugs and alcohol. But before we vilify Rose and prop up MLB for keeping out a criminal, let’s remember that profiting off of vices has been part of baseball’s business model for almost its entire existence.

Major League Baseball has no place being high and mighty about gambling and Pete Rose. Just as they had no place suspending and punishing Josh Hamilton for admitting to relapsing on alcohol and drugs in the offseason. As long as baseball continues to take money from DraftKings and Budweiser for being the “official daily fantasy sports partner” and “the official beer of Major League Baseball,” then they don’t get the moral high ground to fine and suspend their players for participating in those same vices. DFS is not going to go away, and since most sites operate online, it is not an easy form of gambling to regulate. If Major League Baseball wants to police its players and keep them from participating in activities that are thought to be unbecoming without being hypocrites, they must renounce their deals and partnerships with these companies and industries.

Last year, we looked at the arguments for and against the implementation of instant replay in baseball. This year, Major League Baseball decided to make replay a part of the game, but as with any change, there have been some hiccups. These hiccups have led to some resistance and blowback, leading to contention about the system itself. Each failure of instant replay in its infant stage represents a chance for the entire system to come crashing down. Baseball should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

While many initially fought replay on the grounds that the new system was too complex or arbitrary, the list of rules agreed upon by MLB owners is very straightforward. A list of reviewable plays as reported by Jayson Stark at ESPN reports, can be seen below:

In addition to home runs, expanded replay was unanimously approved by MLB owners for the following plays:

These plays provide little room for interpretation and instead place a burden of education on the managers and team staff, as is the case with all other baseball rules. It is the team’s responsibility, as well as the announcers commentating on the game, to understand the possibilities of replay in order to effectively do their job.

Any critique of the new system on the basis of challengeable plays, such as those regarding the “neighborhood rule”, which is the caveat to the force play listed above, are fair in order to examine possible improvements. Yet these arguments should be analyzed through the lens of player safety, which is another focus that MLB is attacking through new policies regarding catcher collisions, pitcher’s padded hats, and now middle infielders.

Mark Ellis Needed Surgery to Save His Leg After a Double Play Slide Injury Last Season

Another large critique is that replay is still getting calls wrong. However, it should be understood that replay is not a method that eliminates mistakes; as football fans will attest. Instead, the goal of replay is to reduce the number of incorrect calls. And this is done through the requirement that a replay needs “indisputable video evidence” in order to overturn, which gives preference to the initial call, sometimes at the cost of the right call. Yet this type of system, as opposed to one that assumes skepticism toward the play, limits the umpire’s ability to change a right call to a wrong call and will ultimately reduce the number of blown calls.

By no means is the system perfect, but it should be looked at with respect to what other negative effects replay could have imposed on the game. The current system does a good job of allowing for the possibility of taking a second look at close plays while limiting the possible nuances that could accompany play review. Currently replay rarely prolongs the game any more than a standard pitching change (average replay was just 1:39 in the first 13 games). It limits the possibility of over-challenging by invoking a negative penalty for poor challenges. And it gives GM’s another tool that they can use to evaluate their coaching personnel with; is the manager challenging at the right time, or is the manager too quick to go to replay.

While replay has its flaws, the current system accomplishes its goal of reducing blown calls while working within current MLB policy focuses. Any critiques of the replay system should also be viewed and discussed with the acknowledgement of how they will influence the larger game of baseball. New technologies represent new ways to help improve the game, provided any changes are evaluated and implemented with an eye to existing rules. There is no reason for baseball to stick its head in the ground and reject all change. Its time to move forward and look towards ways to continue improving the game.

Over the past decade, Major League Baseball has attempted to drum up support for the All Star Game with a new democratic selection process and a “This Time it Counts” ad campaign, the later of which was more of an apology for 2002 than a groundbreaking statement. One of the more popular reforms gave fans the ability to select the starting lineups through a voting process. Managers would still be in charge of filling out their respective lineups, but MLB put its belief in the fans ability to find the balance between the most worthy and most popular. The league also started giving home field advantage in the World Series to the side that won the All Star Game in an attempt to improve the game’s meaning for the players and the fans. Ultimately, MLB sought to make the game more of a spectacle for the fans by empowering their control over the game.

Some have derided the changes, claiming that the game is being made into a spectacle and popularity contest all while undermining the accomplishments of the higher seeded playoff teams. What seems to be the most striking is the lack of criticism for the undemocratic final vote competition.

After the lineups are set and the league managers fill their remaining spots, the manager decides on which five players will go before the fans in a vote for the final spot. The winners this year were Freddie Freeman (1B-Atlanta) and Steve Delabar (RP-Toronto). But days before the All Star Game, Freeman injured himself preventing him from participating in the festivities. Bruce Bochy, the NL manager, then appointed his replacement, an action that undermines the premise of voting for the final spot.

Anecdotally, Americans are most accustomed to voting in regards to political races. While there are many different rules regarding voting processes, we, as Americans, like to feel that our vote had a direct result in the eventual outcome. In single candidate races, it is expected that the top vote getter receive the position he was elected to. If, for whatever reason, he is unable to perform, then it is only fair for the second vote getter to step into his place.

In the NL MLB vote, Bochy superceded this process and selected someone who wasn’t even part of the top five vote to begin with. As manager, Bochy should have authority over some roster moves, but he should not disregard the parameters that the MLB has set up in order to increase fan involvement.

If MLB wants to legitimize the impact that the fans have on the All Star Game, it must honor the democratic elements of the “fan-vote”. Otherwise, the sport should recognize the limited amount of influence the fans actually do have over the rosters and rename the final man vote to a final man recommendation.

The Fastball: Punish Them to the Full Extent

By: Ryan

Earlier this week, ESPN received word that Major League Baseball is planning to issues bans to over 20 players connected to Tony Bosch‘s steroid drive-thru, Biogenesis. If reports are true, suspensions of varying degrees will be issued, with Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez being banned for the rest of the season and then some.

One hundred games to be exact.

100 game suspensions are usually reserved for “second offense” punishments and if any player receives a ban of this length as a result of the Biogenesis scandal, it will mark the first time that MLB has issued a steroid related suspension without the evidence of a positive test. Not only are these suspensions justified, but any and all suspensions issued by MLB as a result of this case indicate a new proactive approach to ridding the game of performance enhancing drugs – a step that is emphatically taken with 100 game suspensions.

Bosch has been cooperative with the MLB Biogenesis investigation.

MLB always seemed to be 90 feet behind the steroid issue. Although home run numbers were growing just as fast as the muscles and foreheads of the players in the nineties, Baseball didn’t implement a random drug policy until 2004, where a positive test would result in a 10 game suspension. The policy was updated in 2005 to its current ramifications, but only after Congress pressured the sport to do so. Even then, the PED policy appeared to do little to curb the use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs in the game and seven suspensions were issued in 2012 alone.

The biggest black eye to the policy came in 2011 when MVP Ryan Braun found himself in his first PED scandal. At the end of that season, Braun was tested. His results showed an increased level of testosterone caused by performance enhancing drugs. But since his urine sample was not shipped via FedEx on the same day they were collected, Braun was able to escape without a suspension, dampening the legitimacy and strength of the MLB PED suspension policy.

A 100 game suspension issued to any player in the coming weeks would show exactly how serious MLB is taking the PED issue. This type of suspension would be the result of two factors, the linkage to the Biogenesis case and previous denials of usage to MLB officials. These two factors will more often than not go hand in hand, making 100 game suspension the norm and further disincentivizing the use and denial of PED’s.

With this approach, MLB is able to sidestep the players union, which has been hesitant to incorporate any increase in severity of the PED policy. This might present an interesting legal battle for the league if they do issue penalties, but it is a fight worth having. The suspension, with an emphasis on its length, establishes the League as a legitimate advocate against steroids and validates the MLB’s desire to use every piece of evidence possible to persecute offenders.

Unfortunately, giving Braun and A-Rod a 100 game suspension will not eradicate PED’s from the game, but it will show that MLB is taking cheating seriously, a stance that it hasn’t been willing to admit up to this point.

Uh-oh.

The Changeup: No More Technicalities

By: Matt

Major League Baseball deciding to go forward and suspend these 20 players is good for the sport. It is high time the league took a stand. When it comes to A-Rod and Ryan Braun, any suspension will be a good suspension. The league is considering making an example of the two former-MVPs since both lied about their PED use in the past and are now implicated again. However, by seeking the maximum 100-game suspension (50 games for cheating and 50 games for lying about it), Major League Baseball is making a mistake. Lots of money buys good lawyers, and the players association will probably bring a lot of its clout to the fight as well. In the same way that Al Capone finally went to jail for tax evasion, so too should the League be happy to suspend Braun for just the 50 games. Braun got off on a technicality last time, and the League cannot afford to let that happen again. The length of suspension is not important. What is important is putting these players on record as having cheated. It will tarnish their image with the fans, vacate their records in the eyes of Cooperstown, and be a deterrent to future would-be cheaters that the MLB is finally taking this issue seriously.

Capone was a baseball lover, but still ended up doing hard time.

For this to actually work though, what is needed is a full-scale demonization of PED use in the game. It is time for everyone to stop looking the other way. The league needs to do everything in its power to show that it is taking cheating seriously.

This means that these 20 or so players identified in the Biogenesis documents need to all be suspended and on record as cheaters. There are calls everywhere to make the penalties longer, from 50 games to 100 games for first time offenders, for instance. This increase in length of suspensions would be hard to do because of the agreements that the players association has with the league. The length of the suspensions is not as important as the suspension itself. Penalties themselves do not dissuade players from trying to get a leg up. Players by their nature will do everything they can to try and get a little better. The important thing will be in convincing players not to cheat. This will only come if the media, owners, and organizations agree to stop looking the other way when it comes to known cheaters.

Melky Cabrera, one of the players implicated in the Biogenesis documents, was suspended last year in the midst of his best year in the big leagues. The Giants moved on and refused to put him on the postseason roster even though he was eligible. In his contract year, he didn’t receive the extension he was seeking, but did receive a lucrative 2 year, $12 million deal from the Blue Jays in the offseason. Bartolo Colon was suspended last year for PED use, but the A’s decided to resign him anyways and he currently sits as both the ace of their staff and an All-Star. There are around 18 other players listed on the Biogenesis documents. This means that around half the organizations in baseball have decided to look the other way at their players PED use.

This cannot continue.

There are hundreds of young players that are toiling away in the Minor Leagues and doing everything right trying to make it to the show. The League needs to stop rewarding cheaters and keeping them around as it sends the wrong message. Minor Leaguers and even some college and high school players feel that they have to use PEDs to make it as well. PED use becomes both a feedback loop and self-fulfilling prophecy when gone unpunished or brushed aside. The League can get this right. The first step is going through with these suspensions and getting these players on the books. The second step will be up to everyone to decide if we can finally move forward as a sport.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are once again off to a hot start. The owners of a 53-34 record, good for second in their division, the Pirates are looking to finish 2013 in the style they hoped to finish 2012. If current trends are any indicator, Pittsburgh should have no problems locking up their first playoff birth since 1992.

PNC Park – Home of the Pittsburgh Pirates

The biggest strength that the Pirates have this year is pitching, although it wouldn’t seem that way when looking at the starting rotation. Entering the season, Pittsburgh’s starting rotation consisted of A.J. Burnett, Wandy Rodriguez, Francisco Liriano, Jeff Locke, and James McDonald. The first three names of that list are the most recognizable but also came with the most uncertainty at the beginning of the season. Burnett entered the season at 36 years old. Wandy Rodriguez is 34. And Francisco Liriano has always been known to have streaks of greatness that are perpetually stalked by an inability to throw strikes. McDonald was going to be a solid mid rotation guy, and Locke, with half a years experience, would attempt to fill out the back end.

Once the season got underway, all expectations were exceeded and the rotation proved to be a dominating force. Burnett showed that the Fountain of Youth filters out of the Allegheny River, pitching to a 3.12 ERA and 10 K/9 in 14 games. Wandy drank some of the same stuff and produced equally strong numbers. But the real stories went to both Francisco Liriano and Jeff Locke.

Even Russell Crowe is excited

Liriano was a high risk/high reward acquisition that many assumed would do far more damage to the team that dared take a flyer on him. But so far, he has been magnificent. Through 10 starts, Liriano has posted a 2.23 ERA and a 9.9 K/9. While the walk rate remains high on the higher end of the spectrum (3.41 BB/9), he is still well under he previous two seasons, which both had a BB/9 ration of 5. While it’s hard to apply the decreased walk rate to any one thing in particular, Liriano will continue to be an asset to the Pirates if that walk rate stays down.

Locke, who has been equally as dominant this year, has a different set of concerns. While on the surface his 2.06 ERA and 7-1 record look remarkable, some of his other numbers raise some questions. So far this season, Locke has been very fortunate to strand a large amount of runners on base. He currently stands with a 85.6% strand rate, which is unsustainable for any big leaguer. Locke has also given up fewer home runs than his fly ball rate would support (8.2%), another reason for second half regression considering it is far under his career average. As both of these stats return to the norm, Locke will see his ERA climb closer to his xFIP of 4.11. Even with this regression though, Locke should continue to contribute to the Pirate rotation in a meaningful way.

Jeff Locke

There is no denying the strength of this rotation. The pitching staff that is 1st out of all major leagues when it comes to team ERA (3.11) and opponent batting average (.225), and third in baseball in WHIP (1.19). But strong rotations tend to get teams only so far before injuries and bullpens cost the team wins. The Pirates have already been faced with these challenges this year and have proved that they have depth, both in the minors and in the pen, which make up for the doubts within their rotation.

So far this season, the Pirates have had to fill their rotation after injuries left them with holes. First they turned to Jeanmar Gomez who after starting eight games, currently sits with a 2-0 record and a 2.76 ERA. They also were forced to turn to highly touted prospect Gerrit Cole, who started his career off 4-0.

The bullpen has also been one of the safest late inning bets in the MLB. Jason Grilli leads the NL in saves and is 27-28 in save opportunities. Before Grilli enters in the ninth, the Pirates have the best set-up men in the game. Mark Melancon has and ERA and WHIP just above 0.8 in 41 innings. The rest of the bullpen combines to have an ERA of 2.92 and an opponent batting average of .217. The strong bullpen helps to fill in for the starting rotation which averages just over 5 1/3 innings per start.

The Pirates second half will not be as good as their first half. The starting rotation will continue to be tested and there will be some regression for Locke and the questions with Liriano will remain. But the Pirates have proven that they have the depth to overcome any pitching problems that may arise.

The Dodgers are currently in the midst of a hot streak. After splitting a series with the Padres, they went on to sweep the Giants and take two of three from the Phillies, leaving the team four games out of first place. There is a sense of optimism in Los Angeles; Nick Punto in an after game interview mentioned the p-word (playoffs), an unusual topic for teams who have been trapped in the cellar for the past month. A big part of this hopeful outlook is because of rookie phenom, Yasiel Puig. The 22 year old Cuban defector has maintained a .436 average in his first month in the big leagues. With 7 home runs and 4 stolen bases, Puig has produced a large chunk of the Dodger offense while removing much of the pressures from his injured and/or struggling teammates. As Puig garners more headlines, the rest of the team’s struggles seem to fade from memory. Nobody is more pleased to have his name disappear from the papers than Don Mattingly, who appeared to already have his bags packed before the rookie was called up.

Mattingly has had a rough year, and while much of this is a result of the struggles of the heavy hitters on his team, he has done little to boost the confidence of LA fans or prove his competency at damage control. Mattingly has hear boos in Dodger Stadium this year get louder after he would take the field to pull Brandon League after another blown save. (It’s hard to say that the jeers are entirely Mattingly’s fault; if your GM decides to give a reliever seven million dollars a season, your hand is forced.) While Puig has helped damper the amount of Mattingly’s boo’s, the Dodger manager has not received enough credit for the work he has done with the lineup.

There has been quite a lot of noise in the sabermetric community about reinventing the traditional batting lineup. Usually, a manager will put the fastest guy first, a good sacrifice guy second and then the big and best hitters three and four, with the primary goal to manufacture runs in the first inning. The rest of the lineup descends in order of skill.

The sabermetric lineup focuses on the stats associated with each batting order position and adjusts accordingly with the focus being on the number two hole. The second batting position should be home to each teams best hitter. He reaches the plate the second most times in a game and more importantly, comes to bat 44% of the time with a runner on base. Mattingly has seemingly stumbled into a sabermetric lineup and it is one of the quietest reasons that the Dodgers have won eight of their last nine. (A more in depth reading of the entire sabermetric optimal lineup can be read here.)

After shuffling Puig around in the lineup during the first weeks of the rookie’s call-up, Mattingly has settled him into the number two hole and been rewarded with great success. Most notably was game 1 of the recent Giants series. Puig homered in the first inning off of Bumgarner, which the giants countered in the second inning and the game remained tied until the eighth. Puig stepped into the batters box with two on and no out and singled to score the go-ahead run. The Dodgers went on to score again that inning, but they wouldn’t need it as the team won 3-1.

Three nights later the Dodgers were losing to the Phillies by one in the seventh inning. The bases were loaded with two outs and Puig steps up to the plate. Sure enough, the rookie hits a single scoring two and handing the Dodgers the lead they would need to win the game.

Only a month into his career, it is fair to question whether Puig is the best hitting Dodger. He is adequately described as “raw”, which is continually evident as he chases breaking balls low and away and currently sits with a 5:1 K to BB ratio. But there is no denying the fact that he has been the best hitting Dodger in June.

The lineup has also been built around Puig, with Gonzalez, Ramirez and Kemp hitting directly behind him in that order. As a result, Puig has scored six times during the last nine games, which has been vital since the team won by 2 or less runs in six of those games.

While there is no guarantee that Puig will find himself in (and producing in) these clutch situations as often as he has been, Mattingly should receive more credit for trusting the odds of the batting order and batting his best hitting Dodger second.

Human Error is a Part of the Game

By: Ryan

No play in baseball has lead to more outcry for the incorporation of expanded replay use by umpires than the blown Jim Joyce call which cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game in the bottom of the ninth. While baseball has been inching towards expanding the use of replay, many will soon find that while replay will solve some deficiencies in the game, it will merely adjust how these deficiencies surface.

The Runner was Called Safe.

It always seemed that a large reason that the game had resisted replay was because its fans believed in two axioms; 1. People make mistakes and 2. Umpires are people. Fans accepted that human error was part of the game and that the human element just another obstacle to overcome. This mentality stems from strike zone discrepancies with different umpires. The general rule is that anything over the plate from the letters to the knees is a strike, but anyone that’s played baseball/softball knows that each umpire sees this zone differently. No other sport relies so heavily on the umpire to define the terms of the majority of the game. And since the game is so dependent on the umpire for balls and strikes, inconsistent “mistake” calls are inevitable. And it always seemed that because of this, we were willing to accept that umpire call were imperfect, even on the base paths.

But it’s 2013, and people are less tolerant of mistakes at the professional level. The demand for expanded replay has grown when fans witness blown call after blown call on the base paths and with fair/foul balls. While the reasoning for expanded replay use has been well vocalized and developed, the ramifications of play review have not been equally evaluated, even though expanded replay will result in longer games, continual play discrepancies, and continual human error.

The most obvious unintended consequence is the lengthening of games. Baseball as a sport is already ragged on because the game “drags on.” Currently, the average baseball game lasts just under three hours. Once umpires are allowed to review plays and consult, the game will see its average game time increase, just like basketball and football, making the baseball experience an even longer affair for non-diehard fans.

While many look for replay to remove the discrepancy that results from human interpretation, this won’t necessarily be the case. When replay is used to determine that a foul ball down the line is actually fair, it will be up to the umpires to determine how many bases the player will be awarded, which can vary depending on the depth of the hit and park proportions. There is no clear cut determining factor, unlike the ground rule double, making awarding bases and runs entirely arbitrary and unrelated to the players skills. Umpires then become even more involved in the game, and can receive more backlash.

Additionally, umpires can still blow calls after looking at replay, an unfortunate event that already happened this year. Earlier in the season, the Athletics were visiting the Indians and were trailing 4-3 in the top of the ninth. Into the box steps Adam Rosales and he crushes a ball deep to left field. The ball looks like a homer but is ruled a double on the field. Due to this discrepancy, the umpires review the play. Fans at home watch the replay and A’s fans rejoice because the hit is clearly a homer. The umpires come back out and rule to the contrary and put Rosales at second. A’s then load the bases before grounding out to the pitcher and losing the game. The next day, the umpires and MLB admit that they botched the call, a call which cost the A’s the chance forcing extra innings. Thus, while replay can reduce the number of botched calls, this problem is not eliminated and leaves umpires with little to no excuse for mistakes.

HR?

While instant replay appears to solve some of the problems that are present in the game, baseball will never be able to entirely eliminate human error and discrepancies.

The Case for Expanded Replay

By: Matt

Nothing in sports is an exact science, but considering the amount of time, money, and effort that goes into playing a baseball game, the league should be doing everything in its power to get a call right. Commissioner Selig has been wary of adding replay to the game for all the reasons that Ryan outlined above, and they are certainly valid, but we have come to a point with technology where no calls should be getting blown and no one should feel cheated or ripped off.

Below are some examples from this year showing that this is indeed a real problem in the game right now. Umpires miss calls. Like Ryan said: it happens, they are human.

Called safe. His foot looks on the bag to me.

Safe?

Missed the bag or didn’t have possession of the ball. Take your pick.

Nice sales job by Segura, but it would have been easily overturned on review.

And my personal favorite:

Ruled Out at Third, Safe at First. Two blown calls on the same play.

In the Adam Rosales home run case from Ryan’s article, the umpires got it wrong. MLB admitted that the call was blown and the A’s ended up losing that game. But can we really fault the umpires for blowing the call when, according to NBC Sports, they were watching the footage on this?

Replay booth or arcade game? Photo: NBC Sports

There are many other examples of blown calls so far this year even though we aren’t half way through the season yet. So, the problem exists, what should we do about it?

First off, MLB needs to upgrade the screens and televisions that umpires are using to review plays. It looks like the ones they currently use double as a way to check the weather during rain delays. There is no excuse for having umpires review on what looks to be a Pac-Man arcade game that has more pixels than the center field scoreboard.

Next, the MLB must expand their use of replay. The argument that review would slow down the game makes sense, but doesn’t the game already get slowed down when a player argues with the umpire? And then the manager argues with the umpire? And then the manager gets tossed? And then the manager keeps arguing since he’s already tossed and can say what he really feels now? And then the players bark at the umpire from the dugout and get tossed? I think you get my point, but think about all the extra time that bad calls currently soak up in a regular baseball game.

This could all be avoided with the introduction of a “challenge flag” system like the one practiced in the NFL. Certain plays would be deemed reviewable, and a manager could get 1-2 challenges per game. This of course would not work on balls and strikes. Since that is still sacred ground with umpires, and this Kickstarter failed. Umpires would be able to review a call and save face on a blown call by reviewing it and getting it right, and managers and players would be happy since they would no longer feel cheated out of an at bat, hit or run.

Now that wasn’t so hard.

Baseball will never be perfect, but considering the expectations that we place on baseball players and management to do everything right all the time, that same expectation must be placed on its umpires. An expanded replay system will not only make sure that the umpires have the materials they need to get the call right as often as possible, but it will eliminate grudges and animosity between players, managers, and umpires. This will lead to fewer ejections and hurt feelings, and most importantly a better ball game.